[xmlenc-devel] Re: VOID_WITHIN_ELEMENT and short-circuiting

SourceForge Headquarters 225 Broadway Suite 1600 San Diego, CA 92101 +1 (858) 422-6466

The suggested (simple) behaviour has been implemented in xmlenc 0.22, 
released a few hours ago.

Ernst

On Friday 10 January 2003 09:09, Ernst de Haan wrote:
> Hey,
>
>
> A while ago I've mentioned adding the state VOID_WITHIN_ELEMENT. This
> state would be entered when for example pcdata("") would be called in the
> state START_TAG_OPEN. This would make it possible to output a combined
> start/end tag instead of separate start/end tags.
>
> Example:
>
>    startTag("html");
>    attribute("lang", "en");
>    pcdata("");
>    endTag();
>
> Currently (xmlenc 0.21) this would produce the following XML:
>
>    <html lang="en"></html>
>
> But when VOID_WITHIN_ELEMENT is fully supported, then this would produce:
>
>    <html lang="en"/>
>
> Reconsidering this, I think I should not pursue this any further and
> remove all evidence I ever did. It's just getting away from simplicity.
>
> The same applies to the short-circuiting when an empty string is printed.
> For example, currently (xmlenc 0.21) the following code:
>
>    startTag("head");
>    comment("");
>    startTag("title");
>
> produces the following XML:
>
>    <head><title>
>
> instead of the (perhaps expected):
>
>    <head><!----><title>
>
> I see no good reason to _keep_ the old behaviour. It's again conflicting
> with the principle of simplicity.
>
>
> Ernst

-- 
Ernst de Haan
Development Team Leader
Wanadoo Nederland B.V.

    The Lord has truly risen!
    Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!